Baseball Is Still Juicing

Where as I have no doubt that somewhere there is a Major League baseball player using steroids, that's not the kind of juicing I'm speaking of. I'm talking about the balls.

Over the first week of the season I saw a lot of baseball, and I noticed a few things. The ball is flying. I have seen 4 home runs at least that should have been nothing more than fly outs. One even got White Sox tv announcers Hawk Harrelson and Darrin Jackson to take notice.

When Reggie Sanders hit a solo shot in the 9th inning of a 3-1 Sox victory in KC Sunday Darrin Jackson could only think of one thing to say.

"What!?"

Sanders had gotten underneath a ball and it looked as if it would be an easy fly ball out. The ball though never stopped moving. Even Reggie Sanders was surprised. After making contact he put his head down and started trotting to first with that "Dead Man Walking" pace hitters have when they know they've made an out.

It's not just that home run, as there have been others. Hell it's not even just home runs. Balls are being absolutely scalded this year. Rope shots everywhere. Jim Thome nearly killed Royal first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz Saturday. At one point Joe Crede hit a ball off the end of his bat, and it carried all the way to the warning track in KC a mere 405 feet away. In that same game Joe Crede broke his bat on an inside fastball and DOUBLED DOWN THE THIRD BASELINE. It was a frozen rope too.

Now I don't want to say that Joe Crede is a wimp, but by no means is he strong enough to do that on his own. Not off the end of the bat one time, and after cracking it another. (Speaking of which, I've also noticed a record pace for broken bats in a season. Does anyone keep track of such a thing? It could be the most inane record ever, and I want to know if we're gonna break it. Screw Bonds, I wanna know the broken bat record in one season!)

Pitchers are in the most danger. Mark Buerhle was pelted by 2 line drives on Sunday without any time to react. Keep in mind that Mark Buerhle is easily one of the three best defensive pitchers in the game today.

I fear that before this season is over, a pitcher is going to get hurt, severely.

Why are the balls juiced?

Well it's kind of obvious really. With the "crackdown" on steroid use by MLB this season can any of us really be surprised that Bud Selig would pull something like this?

Juicing the baseballs is a great smoke and mirrors tactic. This way at the end of the season Selig can tell us that he was right, and that the rest of the country had overreacted to the prevalence of steroids in Major League Baseball.

"Look at all the home runs that were hit this year," he'll say, "We put in stringent testing, and even an investigation into the steroid problem, and balls are still flying out at record paces."

It's a shame too, as so far I've noticed this season a turn to the style of baseball of old. More teams are emphasizing speed and defense this year, and taking an aggressive approach to baserunning. It's an approach the White Sox used last season before everybody else, and it led to their first World Series title since 1917.

There's more bunting though now, and not just in the National League. I'm seeing American League teams bunt with runners on first and third and 2 outs. I think I've seen that more this week than I probably have in the last 5 years combined.

What Bud Selig and baseball don't understand is this.

The great battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did NOT save baseball in 1998. All it really did was accelerate America's forgiveness for the 1994 strike. The fans would have come back eventually with or without McGwire's 70 home runs. Baseball has too long been an everyday aspect of American life and culture for it to ever disappear.

All Bud saw was people like home runs though. So he turned a blind eye to steroids, and now that he got caught up in that he thinks he needs to find a new way to keep the home runs coming.

"Please don't ask about steroid, please don't ask about steroids...God dammit!!"

All the while he completely forgets why people love the home run.

It's a difficult thing to do. Hitting a baseball is probably the hardest thing to do in all of sports, let alone hitting one out of a park. Now it's become so common place that it really has started to lose it's significance.

The lack of interest in Barry Bonds' chase of Ruth and Aaron isn't just due to Bonds' personality and alleged steroid use. It's cuz people have been there and done that.

To me the most exciting play in baseball has always been, and always will be the suicide squeeze play. In most cases the ball travels no further than 10 feet on a suicide squeeze, but there's more baseball being played then that at any other point of a baseball game.

So here we are at a point in which baseball may actually be on the verge of returning to it's former self, and all Bud Selig and his cronies want to do is ruin it some more.

Of course we should all expect this. What else could happen? I mean what has Bud Selig ever done to improve the game of baseball? He put an emphasis on smaller market teams building new ball parks, which has been a nice aesthetic factor. He made the All Star game matter again, but only cuz he obliterated the game the year before by ending it in a tie.

Other than that what?

Please stop juicing the balls Bud. Also, after please make that your last ever move as Commissioneer of Major League Baseball. Baseball needs somebody who cares about baseball. Not a former owner who only sees the bottom line.


RANDOM THOUGHTS

• It pains me to say it, but the Cubs have looked really good so far this season. They just completed a 3 game sweep of the Cardinals at Wrigley Field this weekend led by clutch home runs from Michael Barret and Derrek Lee. The Cubs though have never had a problem beating the Cardinals and Astros. It's the lesser teams in their division (Pirates, Brewers, and Reds) that give them fits. So far so good though.
• The last time I saw as many missed wide open jumpshots as I did Saturday night while the Bulls were creamed at home by Philly, I was the one taking them. The Bulls jump into the 8th seed in the East over Philly, and then they just let them right back in it. Being without Luol Deng didn't help, but there is no excuse for missing that many wide open shots. Especially in such a huge game.
• If Chipper Jones could ever stay healthy for an entire season he'd be a sure fire Hall of Famer. Unfortunately for the Braves and Chipper, that just never happens.
• Some people are saying Coco Crisp will be out for 10 days, others are saying for a month. Either way it's a bad start for Crisp in his new home of Boston, and the Red Sox could ill afford to not have him in the lineup and the field.
• He doesn't believe in dinosaurs, but he does believe he was treated unfairly. Seattle Mariner Carl Everett takes yet another shot at White Sox GM Ken Williams. I guess the fact that Williams traded for him 2 years in a row wasn't enough to convince Crazy Carl that Kenny liked him.
• Toke Ricky Toke!! Ricky Williams finds out his fate from the NFL today after another failed drug test. I have no confirmation to the rumor that if let off the hook Ricky will celebrate by smoking a pound of "the stickiest of the icky."
• The St. Louis Cardinals will open the new Busch Stadium today against the Brewers. It's a gorgeous stadium too, with a view of the Arch and St. Louis skyline. Don't believe me? Fine I'll show you.